


Volare, Viola

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-13
Updated: 2005-10-13
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: If you were a kind of instrument, what would you be? Mal observes River's ability in action, and remembers what may never have been.





	Volare, Viola

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Mild spoilers for Serenity.

  
Author's notes: Mild spoilers for Serenity.  


* * *

Volare, Viola

## Volare, Viola

Disclaimer: Firefly, Serenity, Mal, River? Not mine, never were, never will be. Joss/Universal/Fox/Mutant Enemy's toys, I'm just rummaging through the box. 

* * *

She was a violin. 

Not one of the screechy ones - coated in dust, and kept in banged-up particle-alloy boxes, owned by the kind of folk who used to help his Mama fix the busted fences on their ranch. He almost couldn't bring himself to think of the sort quaintly referred to as 'fiddles' - they had seemed all too often fitting of their names, by the haphazard, masturbatory, out-of-tune sawing back-and-forth that they'd be forced to squeak forth, on the special occasions they got to see the dusky evenings outside their cases. 

There was something unfettered, noble, something graceful, that they had never touched. 

* * *

Fragments from a long-over barn dance, worn fuzzy and almost unfamiliar 'round the edges with the passing of time, fluttered into his mind, unbidden. He'd held his fidgeting cat - almost too much of an armful for a little boy - and had stumbled forward, in shoes too shiny for such a dusty floor. He had ducked between the grown-ups - all a-laughing, eating, and dancing - darting for every blank spot of floor they spared. He stopped, quite suddenly, at the foot of the dais where the musicians were, and had found himself staring in awe at the violinist. 

Her hair was dark, hitched over to one side, and falling in ripples to her breast, her jaw locked stern and straight, bracing the violin against her shoulder. He imagined she was huffing with effort, like the horses at the plow, and her bootheel pounded the floor as though it'd crack the polished wood into splinters. Her pale, lithe fingers didn't seem to hold the strings, or the neck of the instrument - they _flew_ so fast across the fingerboard, where the wood was stained dark from the oil and perspiration and blood of fervent practice. It was as if she were making signs in a language he couldn't understand - were it not for the sweat beading on her brow, and the way her eyes were closed so tight. 

He _did_ understand it, and he remembered the last time he made that same face as she did - swinging from a tree over the creek, the ground pulling away from his feet, and he could only swing higher into the sky, spiting the burn in his tense arms that was pleading with him to let go, let the ground and the water swallow him once again. 

Listening. Listening so _hard_ , he thought his head would split open. The lilt, the phrase, the soulful, slow creak of the horsehair before the next note was breathed into the air. As resolute and sharp as an arrow, let loose from the bow and catching him in the throat, unable to breathe, unable to speak. He _knew_ this feeling - close, and precious as a friend. And he knew _her_ , too, somehow... 

He padded forward cautiously, the cat scrabbling at his arm to flee to the lofts, ruining his Sunday-best shirt. _Zao gao!_ \- Mama would have to understand, he hoped absentmindedly, the sting of the clawmarks fading as the unearthly player filled his vision and mind. 

She was pure fury, a musical whirlwind, an angel aloft - and the bow, her flaming sword, like in the old hymns of Earth-That-Was. He felt a swell in his chest, like the tall grass rippling in the wind. It was an unspoken plea, for her to flutter down on her invisible wings, hoist him up in her arms - to fly, to fight, to howl and holler like the wild, mad children they both were ( _are_ ), and to sing. He begged with wide and watering eyes, with lips unmoving. 

_Don't stop playing._

* * *

In the midst of the fray, River Tam's slender body was nothing less than that passionate, wordless voice from so long ago, flying forth once again, the notes twisting and sliding and thrashing, pounding into hard floors, the keening reverberation ringing sympathetic in teeth and ribcages, rising and descending over the bodies with varnish ( _blood_ ) running down her hands, and rosin ( _sweat_ ) in her hair. 

_Never stop playing._

Mal could not help but to watch the violin's song.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Volare, Viola**   
Author:   **Zephyr Oaks**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG-13**  |  **het**  |  **3k**  |  **10/13/05**   
Characters:  Malcolm, River   
Pairings:  Mal/River   
Summary:  If you were a kind of instrument, what would you be? Mal observes River's ability in action, and remembers what may never have been.   
Notes:  Mild spoilers for Serenity.   
  



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